This week’s story comes from If I Would Leave Myself Behind by Lauren Becker, published by Curbside Splendor. The flash fiction stories in this collection examine urges for connection where friendships are negotiated and love is one-sided, imagined, absent, discovered, or spirals into madness.

These stories grasp to determine whether life can “come with fewer qualifications and be less equivocal,” a world where friendships are negotiated, love is one-sided, imagined, absent, or discovered, and where “going crazy is more subtle than you’d think.”